Revolutionary
by LabyrinthDweller
Summary: Dmitri wishes a second Bolshevik revolution on his emotions.


_Ho-kay, I suppose this was inevitable with the total obsession that suddenly occurred. This is just another one of my mindless drabbles where I start to type something on a character and I don't stop typing until I feel like I've jam-packed every thought possible into it. Apparently people like these, so I suppose there's no reason not to upload it._

_The waltz version of "Learn to do it" was stuck in my head the entire time writing this._

_(I am rebellious and spell it Dmitri regardless of the movie credits HA-HA)_

* * *

**Revolutionary**

She was real.

She was _real_. _Really _real, the one that Western Civilization has been scrambling for ever since the Bolsheviks arrested and executed the royal family.

And he knew, and he was the _only_ one who knew. How could this have happened this way? Dmitri knew that she was the closest thing he had ever seen to the lost Grand Duchess, but to find the one girl in the world who actually _was_ the Grand Duchess made his stomach twist into some sort of knot with no name. To think that the simple mistake of forgetting to tell her how she escaped from the palace would bring such a, pardon the term, revolutionary war on his mind that he almost forgot how to walk. Somehow he did though, he found his feet leading him out to the lavish backyard where the mutt Pooka was panting at the window, gazing in to see Anya.

Gazing in to see Anastasia. She _was_ the princess. Anya no more. Orphan no more. Princesses, even when the parents are lost, are never orphans. The mentality just simply isn't there because of all the servants attending to them at all times.

Dmitri stared up at the leaves of the overshadowing tree, watching as the breezes shifted the leaves, letting small droplets of sunlight shine through the gaps. Shoving his hands impolitely into the tight little pockets of the suit he wore, he gazed away into memories.

Back to when the family was still alive. Back to when there were ideas in Russia. Back when Nicolas II was Czar. He couldn't clearly remember himself, being so young at the time, but the constant gossip of the maids and the afterthoughts of Vlad taught him that Nicolas II didn't _want_ to be Czar, ruler of all Russia. That Nicolas II wasn't right for the job, daft, even. That Rasputin had bewitched his way into the family by means of Alexandra and that was where it began as far as destruction from the inside-out goes. Nobody in Russia liked Rasputin—it seemed that everyone but the royal family themselves knew he was a fraud from the get-go. The only son of the Czar and Czarina was inflicted with a disease, the people would say, and that was why Rasputin stayed and poisoned the Czarina with his lust, they gossiped. Russia was in terrible shape then, and the Czar was doing nothing to help. It was best indeed that he was removed from power, but to murder everyone? Dmitri lost the logic there. He was ten when the palace was invaded. There was a scar just above his left temple where the butt of a rifle cracked his skull from the storming of the palace. It was lucky that he had survived, it was a miracle that the Dowager Empress survived as well.

It was impossible that Anastasia survived.

But...

She remembered something nobody told her. The boy that opened the wall. Perhaps only three people knew of that in the world. One turned to a life of forgery crimes, one grew old in Paris, the other was supposedly lost and dead in the snows of the unforgiving, revolutionary Russia. There was only one possible explanation, and that was that their Anya, the ragged rat off of the streets trespassing in the abandoned palace was truly the long-lost, long sought after Grand Duchess Anastasia.

And Dmitri felt..._horrible._

He felt disgusting. Scum of the earth. Serf in Hell. Sleazy, slimy, wicked, treacherous, inhuman, devious, demonic. Now that she became real, Dmitri felt ashamed down to the depths of his chest. He tricked her, conned her, lied to her all the way just to find out that none of it was a lie at all and that _he _was the one being fooled all along. Was this a sort of comeuppance? It didn't feel like one, but he felt sick enough that it certainly could be.

If it was a comeuppance, though, it wasn't for all his years of forgery and trickery. No, it was for something else, something hidden in his past and yet so burned in his brain that he could never forget it.

Once a peasant servant, always a peasant servant.

You are not allowed to wander amongst the royals or those of high status. You are not to stare, look, or even glance at them. You belong here in the filthy kitchen peeling potatoes with raw fingers, god help you if you accidentally cut yourself. You belong where the royals have left, cleaning up their nearly sacred leftovers. You earn your right to live, and you do so by never mixing air, flesh, or blood with that of the royal family. Do so and you might as well be dead to us, thrown out into the harsh snows of Russia, where she will take care of you in a manner that we cannot.

Not a day ago he had dined with a royal. Waltzed with a royal. Grasped a royal by the waist, swinging her up in his arms and embracing her in such a way that she was comforted by it.

He had broken the very foundation of laws that his life was built upon from the moment he was ripped from his mother's dying womb.

_Of course not, Your Grace. I just..._hate_ to see you forced to mingle with all those _commoners.

Dmitri pinched the bridge of his nose. Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Those feelings he felt on the deck of the _Tasha_, the constricting sensation in his chest that made him stutter and say idiotically obvious things, he knew what it was from the story books that Vlad had educated him on after he had adopted (saved) Dmitri from a harsh orphanage. It was some sort of boyish crush that he couldn't shake ever since...well...come to think of it, ever since _ever_, even from the moment he initially saw her. And that goes back to the first time he caught a glimpse of her when he was eight and she was six. She tossed his master, the cook, straight into the babbling brook during a picnic! He was impressed by her nerve and wildness, and ever since he struggled to break free from the servant's quarters just to catch a petty _glance _of her. How he adored her so then!

And how he adored her now, knowing her anew.

His adoration would not be allowed to last, however. When she was still Anya to him, his foolishness was plausible at best. He had even planned it out, went through the steps in his head in the waning hours of the night on board the _Tasha_, hair slick with icy water that soaked the lumpy pillow he had. He would wait a year or two for the commotion over the finding of the Romanov princess, wait for the Dowager to realize that she _wasn't_ Anastasia, therefore releasing her back into the world where he could find her somehow and whisk her away to his own little world built off of the prize money and there they could live happily ever after (sarcastic harassment and all) just like in the storybooks.

But now, his foolish dreams caved in on themselves with the revelation that Anya was indeed Anastasia. He couldn't even look at her now, not without having a more superior blood. Even in a communist government Dmitri's mind still worked in a feudal setting. Everyone was equal? Not so. Some were worth more than others. Anastasia was worth the world.

Dmitri was worth grime.

But couldn't he learn? Anya went from ragged, bony woman to lush, graceful princess in three days, why couldn't he do something similar? He knew enough about royalty and nobility and sacred blood. Vlad had educated him on the Romanov royal family, from Ivan IV to Nicolas II. All it took was a little money, some etiquette lessons, and a commanding state of mind and he would be to terms with Anastasia in no time. He could learn.

Hell, he'd even learn how to properly ride horses for that sort of a trade off.

Anya did it in three days. Maybe he could do it to.

No wait. Wait.

It was easy for Anya, because Anya knew everything before. Compared to her, even though he taught her and coached her, Dmitri knew nothing.

Once a peasant servant, always a peasant servant.

Nevermind everything then. Nothing has happened. Nothing has changed. He'd take the money and go, just like that. She was going to find what she was looking for, and Dmitri supposed that was enough. The money was what he was looking for anyways in the first place. Bury the constriction in your chest and move on with life. Anya was Anya no more. The feelings that he felt were irrelevant to the world. He was going to walk away before she noticed that he was slipping away.

Vlad burst from the back door, yelling in the most jovial voice Dmitri had ever heard from him in years. Soon his ribcage was crushed against his friend's heavy pudge. Dmitri tried to quietly, seriously explain his knowledge to Vlad, but he was too joyous to hear. Soon, without waiting for another chance Dmitri gave up. Perhaps it was better if no one knew the truth. Anya then—no, Anastasia then followed Vlad in a voice that was pitched high in excitement. They were going shopping in downtown Paris by courtesy of Sophie. Dmitri looked her way, unaware that he was gazing at her almost longingly. She twirled, her hair blazing in the sun like a fire, complimenting the blue dress he had bought that mimicked the waves of the ocean. Momentarily, as he gazed, he dreamed of their waltz on the _Tasha _and the foolish hopes he had created that following night.

She certainly had a mind of her own.

He liked that in a woman.


End file.
